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Heading continues: ‘To the Tune of Cheviot Chase’. First line: ‘Come all you Youths, that yet are free’.

Heading continues: ‘ To the Tune of Sir Roger Martin.’ First line: ‘There’s Sunder-land the Tory’.

Heading continues: ‘ To the Old Tune, Taking of Snuff is the Mode of the Court etc.’ First line: ‘The Widows and Maids’.

First line: ‘You good men of Middesex, Countrymen dear’. Subscribed ‘1680.’

First line: ‘Husband! thou dull unpitty’d Miscreant!’ Subscribed: ‘1675’.

First line: ‘The free-born English, generous and Wise’. Subscribed ‘1679.’ The allusion is to Tacitus, Agricola, cap. 13 (‘Britanni delectum … serviant’).

First line: ‘Ah Raleigh! when thou didst thy Breath Resign’.

First line (after speech-heading): ‘While I in the Camp’.

First line: ‘We read in Prophane, and Sacred Records’.

First line: ‘Fine Women are delicate things’.

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Transcript

A Dialogue between two Brothers

Fine Women are delicate things
The Comfort and Joy of Man’s Life
Companions for Nobles and Kings,
Then who would but have a good Wife

Brother Billy O what do you mean?
Are not Women the Authors of Strife,
Many desperate Snares have I seen.
Then who would be plagu’d with a Wife?

When a Man’s incumber’d with Care
She’ll help for to Nourish his Life:
And part of the Burthen she’ll bear.
Then who would but have a good Wife

But they’ll plunder my silver and Gold
And ramble abroad to the life
Besides they are give to Scold,
Then who would be plagued with a Wife

Oh! why do you covet your wealth
It will bring you to sorrow and Strife
When you came of a Woman yourself
Then why should you hate a good Wife

I hate not a Woman he cryed
But O the sad Name of a Wife
I cannot endured† to be tyed
To Sorrow all Days of my life

Besides they have flattering tongues
They’ll Cousin a Man out of his Life
Ah! and Cuckold us when we are young
The[n] who would be plagued with a Wife

First line: ‘Uds Life we’re undon’. The British Library copy (Add. MS 34362, ff. 55r–56r) is headed ‘A dialogue between King and Duke 1678’.

Prose. The discourse includes, among other things, a translation of part of a letter by Machiavelli (pp. 113–16) and notes of speeches by Colonel Birch and others in the House of Commons in 1675 and 1676 (pp. 117–21).

First line: ‘Curst be those dull unpointed Dogrel Rhymes.’

First line: ‘Thou Common Shore of this Poetic Town,’ Subscribed: ‘John Dryden 1677’.

Heading continues: ‘To the Tune of Youth, Youth, etc.’ First line: ‘The Youth was belov’d in the Spring of his life’. ‘Lory’ was the nickname of Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester. For the date see Macaulay’s History of England, i. 371 n.

First line: ‘Our Prologues Wit grows flat: the Nap’s worn off’. Attributed to Shad-well in The Works of John Dryden, ed. Walter Scott, vii (1808), 131–2.

Prose. First words: ‘Tom I know thou art allow’d to be impudent’. Subscribed ‘Your humble Servant | Bess a Bedlam.’ The writer complains of the immoderate spending of the king’s mistresses and the behaviour of Henry Brouncker and Henry Killigrew, and reference is made to Father St Germain.

First line: ‘Dear Friend, I fain wou’d try once more’.

First line: ‘From the Lawless Dominion of Mitre and Crown’.

First line: ‘Hast thou at last that Mother Church too quited’. Last line: ‘And have no hope of Heaven by his Word.’

Heading continues: ‘To the Tune of the Irish Jig’. First line: ‘’Twere Folly, if ever’.

Heading continues ‘To the Tune of, She got Mony By’t etc.’ First line: ‘If devout Paulet Mary’.

First line: ‘Thou mighty Princess, lovely Queen of Holes’.

First line: ‘Let Ancients boast no more’. Subscribed ‘1679’.

Heading continues ‘ To the Tune, I am a Senceless Thing.’ First line: ‘Come hither Topham come, with hey, with a hey’.

Motto: ‘Odi Imitatores Servum Pecus etc.’ (adapted from Horace, Epistles, I. xix. 19). First line: ‘Since the united Cunning of the Stage’.

First line: ‘How our good King does Papists hate’. Subscribed ‘1680.’

First line: ‘Let the Commons hunt their Plots, with a hey’. Subscribed ‘1680.’

First line: ‘Behold the Genius of our Land’.

Prose.